Lime Launches Electric Scooter Reservation Feature In Three Cities

Electric scooter rental company Lime has announced a new feature test that enables riders to reserve a scooter before they're ready to take it. The new reservation option is limited to customers in certain locations for now, but will be more widely deployed in the future as a convenience feature for riders concerned about scooter availability. The feature requires riders to have an iPhone.

Lime offers electric scooters in certain cities around the world, giving customers an alternative to taxis and other transportation options. The system involves a mobile app that shows customers where an available electric scooter is located; the same app is also used to unlock the scooter using a QR code.

There are some obvious benefits to these electric scooters, including low cost and on-demand availability...but the latter depends on there being a free scooter in the nearby vicinity, of course. That's where the new scooter reservation feature comes in.

If you see an available scooter near your destination and want to make sure it'll still be there when you arrive, the reservation feature lets you call dibs on it for up to 15 minutes. When a customer reserves a scooter, other Lime users will no longer see it within the app's map during the 15-minute reservation period.

Lime's Produce Manager Will Lee explained:

We understand how frustrating it can be to find a scooter on the map and walk to it, only to find out that another rider has already taken it. This new reserve feature helps to assure our riders that a Lime scooter will be waiting for them when they get there.

The feature is arriving this week in Tel Aviv, Lyon, and Brisbane as a beta test.